Islamabad, November 7, 2015: In a party statement issued yesterday, the PPP MNAs and Finance Committee members Naveed Qamar, Dr Nafisa Shah and Makhdoom Syed Mustafa Mehmood have expressed deep concern at the nonfunctional Standing Committee for Finance and Economic Affairs since the past several months.

“There is no Chairperson of the Committee since five months and it seems that the government is not really bothered,” said MNA and former Minister for Finance Naveed Qamar.

“It took the government one year to appoint the first Chairman of the Committee and now with the vacancy, it seems the government will continue the tradition of keeping the Finance Committee Chair vacant so that no one will ask any questions. Unfortunately our most reliable reports on the Ministry of Finance operations and performance are from none other than the IMF, which is ironical. There are no channels of communication between the parliamentarians and the Ministry, no transparency and no oversight,” he added.

The PPP members of the Finance Committee further added that they are now reading the reports that the government is planning on imposing new taxes worth 40 bn to close the fiscal deficit which is unacceptable.

The PPP will protest on this issue in the forthcoming parliamentary session.